Indian Railways has introduced new facilities to book Tatkal tickets through IRCTC’s website. Under “buy rail tickets now and pay later” scheme, a customer has the option to pay within 14 days of booking an e-ticket through the IRCTC website – irctc.co.in. This facility is also available for booking Tatkal tickets. Under the online Tatkal booking facility, customers can go to the IRCTC website and book tickets on a first come, first served basis by paying Tatkal charges. IRCTC processes 1,30,000 Tatkal transactions daily. A majority of these tickets is booked within minutes of the quota opening.

10 Things To Know About Tatkal Reservation:

1) The new facility, called ‘ePaylater’, is powered by M/s Arthashastra Fintech Pvt Ltd as a pilot project.

2) The service charge levied on use of the ‘ePaylater’ scheme is 3.50 per cent of transaction amount and applicable taxes. To make people aware about the availability of this method, an option of ‘ePaylater’ is displayed at the payment page of the IRCTC website

3) You will receive the payment link through email and SMS on making a booking and will get up to 14 days to make the payment, according to the IRCTC website.

4) “Please note that failure to make payment within 14 days will lead to levy of penal interest at the rate of 36 per annum and may also lead to cancellation of your ticket and/or user account deactivation,” the IRCTC website added.

5) In another Pay-On-Delivery option – powered by Anduril Technologies – for tatkal tickets, IRCTC users will be able to pay via cash, debit card or credit card by opting to have tickets delivered at their doorstep.

6) “The pay on delivery feature circumvents the use of a payment gateway and will help users make the bookings in just a few seconds greatly increasing their chance of booking a confirmed ticket under the Tatkal quota,” said Anduril Technologies CEO Anurag Bajpai.

7) Refusal on part of the customer to pay for the ticket shall amount to its cancellation and the customer shall be liable to pay for the cancellation charges, failure of which shall invite strict action as per law and user account will be deactivated, the IRCTC website said. Transaction charges for this facility range from Rs. 90 to Rs. 120 plus applicable taxes for transaction.

8) If you opt for the ‘Book Now, Pay Later’ option – powered by Anduril Technologies – via the IRCTC website, you will be led to a page which states: “In case, if the travel is within next 24 hrs, you are requested to pay online through payment link forwarded to the email given at the time of booking. Door step payment collection will be attempted within next 24-72 hours. In case of non-payment before the travel date, the ticket will be cancelled and the user will be liable to pay the cancellation charges.” After that you need to fill in the details.
9) After reports on social media and some websites that Tatkal booking rules will change from July 1, 2017, the Railways had issued a clarification, saying that there had been no changes. “It has been noticed that a news item is in circulation in various social media platforms, WhatsApp groups, and some websites which mentions that Indian Railways is introducing several changes and new facilities with effect from 1st July, 2017. This news is totally incorrect and baseless,” it had said in a statement recently.

10) The booking timings for Tatkal tickets were last changed in 2015 with booking for AC classes opening at 10:00 am and for non-AC classes at 11:00 am (one day in advance of actual date of journey excluding date of journey). There has no change in these timings and the same arrangement is continuing, the Railways added.